Category: Hemp News

Take a trip down the aisle of the nearest Whole Foods Market and it won’t take long to fill a shopping basket with products trumpeting the health and beauty benefits of a commodity Texas farmers are forbidden to grow: hemp.

Gov. Bruce Rauner on Saturday signed a bill legalizing industrial hemp, adding Illinois to a growing list of states that allow the growth of cannabis for non-drug purposes.

“Legalizing the farming of industrial hemp just makes good sense,” Rauner said in a statement. “Roughly 38 states — including our neighbors in Wisconsin, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri and Tennessee — have allowed or are considering allowing cultivation of this crop for commercial, research or pilot programs. Our farmers should have this option as well.”

Today (8/16/18) In the newspaper there was a notice to anyone selling hemp oil. The notice stated “To anyone selling any of the various brands of hemp oil in Ozona. If the oil contains any amount of the banned substance, THC, the sale or purchase of any such product is a felony in the state of Texas. Please be sure if you possess any of the hemp oil products, it does not contain any THC.”

Texas hemp advocates want to see fields of green on farms across the state — and they’re rallying lawmakers to make it happen.

A group of hemp advocates testified Tuesday before the Texas House Agriculture and Livestock Committee about the jobs and economic opportunities that are possible if the state allows Texas farmers to grow the crop. Hemp is a variety of the cannabis plant but has low or untraceable amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the psychoactive compound that gives marijuana users a high.

After legalization, hemp biofuel could be a key part of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.

Fuel is everything. America would not be the hyper-efficient economy it is today without something to power our cars, computers, and our Roomba vacuum cleaners. We would be nothing but Neolithic farmers without our electricity and gasoline. But, anything that is truly valuable always comes at a price. Traditional fuel sources hurt the environment, and they’re running out. Air pollution from processing fossil fuels harms the troposphere, and indirectly depletes ozone from our atmosphere. The price for hyper efficiency is evident, which is why alternative fuel sources are becoming so important. Today we focus on a fuel source that hits close to home. That alternative is hemp biofuel.

Farmers in Texas are well positioned to be top producers of what’s poised to become the next major U.S. cash crop — hemp — but only if state lawmakers let them, advocates told a legislative committee at the Capitol on Tuesday.

“Texas could lead the nation’s hemp economy,” said Shawn Hauser, a representative of the American Hemp Campaign. “It’s jobs, family farms and economic growth. It’s just common sense” to legalize the crop in Texas.

California health authorities dealt a blow to the burgeoning CBD industry by banning preparations of CBD derived from industrial hemp rather than psychoactive cannabis. The decree adds to the legal confusion around the cannabinoid and highlights the need for greater clarity from authorities at both the state and federal level.